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Obverse

The York County, Maine, Tercentenary half dollar is a fifty-cent piece minted in 1936 as a commemorative coin to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of York County, the southernmost county in Maine and the first to be organized. The obverse shows Brown's Garrison, a fort around which York County developed, while the reverse depicts the county's arms. A commemorative coin craze in 1936 saw some coins authorized by the United States Congress that were of mainly local significance; the York County issue was one of these, passing Congress without opposition in the first half of 1936. Maine artist Walter H. Rich designed the issue; his work has garnered mixed praise and dislike from numismatic authors. The Philadelphia Mint struck 25,000 for public sale. Less than 19,000 sold by 1937, more than half to Mainers; the rest were sold in the 1950s. As of 2021, the York County half dollar catalogs for around $200, depending on condition. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Mallard II

... that the wooden-hulled Mallard II (pictured), built in 1936, is "probably the oldest operating dredge in California"?
... that Danish dairy farmer Hanne Nielsen created a Tilsit cheese for King Christian IX of Denmark?
... that South Carolina radio station WBAW received a Peabody Award for public-service programming just six months after signing on the air?
... that Jack G. Downing, the only person to serve as CIA station chief in Moscow and Beijing, "read Chinese poetry for kicks"?
... that according to campus legend, the English Building at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is haunted by the ghost of a female student who drowned in the building's pool?
... that Andreas Schnider, a theologian and local Austrian People's Party leader from Graz, holds a leading role in Austria's teacher training?
... that the range of freshwater snail Beddomeia waterhouseae consists merely of a small tributary in Tasmania?
... that at the time the post was abolished, the prime minister of Zambia was being paid less than his secretary?

In the news

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya

Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (pictured) travels to Poland on a humanitarian visa after attempts by the Belarus Olympic Committee to repatriate her against her will.
In Olympic athletics, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas breaks a 26-year-old world record in the women's triple jump, and world records are set in men's and women's 400 metres hurdles by Norwegian Karsten Warholm and American Sydney McLaughlin.
Wildfires in southern Turkey kill at least eight people and injure more than 800 others.

On this day

August 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia (1995)

Bertha Benz's Patent-Motorwagen

641 or 642 – King Penda of Mercia defeated and killed King Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield, traditionally believed to have been fought in Oswestry, Shropshire, England.
1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen (pictured).
1981 – U.S. president Ronald Reagan fired the 11,345 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization en masse.
2011 – NASA launched the Juno probe to Jupiter as part of the New Frontiers program.

Edmund of Woodstock (b. 1301)
Harry Trott (b. 1866)
Alec Guinness (d. 2000)

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Today's featured picture

Don César de Bazan is an opéra comique in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery, Dumanoir and Jules Chantepie, based on a play by d'Ennery and Dumanoir first performed in 1844. This in turn drew on the popular character of Don César de Bazan from the 1838 drama Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, despite having little connection with the plot of Hugo's drama. This poster, engraved by Célestin Nanteuil, advertised the opera's premiere, which took place at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 November 1872.

Engraving credit: Célestin Nanteuil; restored by Adam Cuerden

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